Credit Crisis Archives - Page 5 of 10 - Emile Woolf writes

I noted last month that the record of auditors’ ability to assess the worth of banks’ loan portfolios is singularly uninspiring. In the US the Securities and Exchange Commission is actively pursuing auditors who issued clean opinions after accepting management’s assurances of worth, followed by massive bailouts. Yet any meaningful audit is impossible when supposed […]

On 20 Dec 2013, at 08:52, Gabi Maddocks wrote: Hi dad – I think you might be interested in this.Xx Check out this video on YouTube. Sent from my iPhone: “The facts are not surprising. The US Government has been printing money out of thin air at the rate of $85 Billion per month for […]

AUDITING BANKS’ TOXIC DEBTS Ever since the financial markets registered their massive tumble in 2008, when Lehman Brothers was left to drown in its swamp of toxic debts, banks’ managements, regulators, rating agencies and auditors have been muttering that banks must rebuild their balance sheets in line with successive Basel capital adequacy criteria. Their auditors, […]

When I started writing for this magazine over 40 years ago the editor was a wise old owl called Geoffrey Holmes. During a conversation on some thorny accounting controversy Geoffrey would slyly suggest that I tackle it in my next article. It was no use suggesting a different subject – he would simply look at […]

Everyone knows that the world’s economic woes are soluble. Every leader acknowledges the blessings of free trade, low taxes, sound money and less regulation. Yet their actions, as ever, speak louder than words and somehow achieve the precise opposite. Take “free trade”. It allows cross-border commercial transactions to take place between willing traders unimpeded by […]

You hardly need an auditor to tell you what you can see for yourself. The unholy trinity of Central Bank, Treasury and the cabal of leading banking institutions has been operating a mutual self-help alliance that has rendered Britain’s banking capability utterly dysfunctional. The banking sector, overjoyed at the prospect of absorbing central bank largesse, […]

The subject of Europe polarises any otherwise rational debate. Obsessional prejudice, whether pro or con, induces deafness and drives out reason. More inflammatory even than party politics (where spin and expediency have blunted the ideals), passions over Europe (the Union, not the continent) have taken on the trappings of a belief system, susceptible to neither […]

Regulation of the UK financial services industry is now entrusted to a new body with a new name and a new boss. Andrew Bailey, whose signature appears on your banknotes, takes over this month as chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, successor to the FSA. Initial impressions augur well. In his first post-appointment interview […]

Regulation of the UK financial services industry is now entrusted to a new body with a new name and a new boss. Andrew Bailey, whose signature appears on your banknotes, takes over this month as chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, successor to the FSA. Initial impressions augur well. In his first post-appointment interview […]

Twelve years ago, when their audit of Enron’s last accounts heralded the demise of Arthur Andersen, the largest end of the audit market shrank to four firms. The Competition Commission (CC) has now provisionally concluded that the audit market is restricted: companies are inhibited from switching auditors and there is a tendency for auditors to […]